I recently convinced RJDiogenes to try watching the beginning of season 4, and he had some questions:

RJDiogenes, on 30 October 2018 - 05:17 PM, said:

Sci-Fi Girl, on 29 October 2018 - 05:51 PM, said:

If you have any specific questions, I could probably answer them.

Well, one thing that springs to mind is how they decide what events they can intercede in? They could save Woodstock, but they couldn't save Zari's mother? Why? Maybe the Woodstock Massacre caused the Dystopian future. Woodstock was such a giant cultural touchstone that changing it to that degree would have changed the timeline a lot.

Also, are these characters supposed to vaguely resemble real DC characters like the characters on SHIELD resemble Marvel characters? I recognized Constantine as a version of Alan Moore's old character from Swamp Thing and Hellblazer (a character I never cared for), but I didn't recognize anyone else.

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I think that was Zari's line? If it helps, she is from the future, and a somewhat dystopian* one at that. It was probably not a priority topic in her family's history.

Yeah, there was a scene at the end in a playground where all that was implied, and made me wonder if they are all from the future or various points in time.

So I decided to write this guide to how things work in the show, who’s who, and how season’s 1-3 set things up for season 4. Here it is!

SFG

"A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after." - Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger's life was a picture of an idea in flight, and the idea will continue long after. As long as there are people with goodness and courage in their hearts, the idea will continue forever.

Basically, they try to preserve the original timeline as best they know how, from being changed by various forces. Things tend to go haywire when they change something they shouldn't. (And of course, messing with your own personal timeline is dangerous territory.)

Intro: their time-ship, the Waverider, is from the future. The ship's computer is an advanced AI named Gideon. Gideon has a full database of history, and has a few ways of tracking / detecting changes as they happen. This works slightly differently each season, with different terminology, to go with the different kinds of threats each season.

Cement: Early on it was described that changes to the timeline take a little while to "cement". That is, at first the timeline is in flux, and can still be changed back before the whole future changes accordingly. But the longer a change is left in place, and the more consequences from it are added to the timeline, the harder it is to reverse. Wait too long, and there's no going back: the new timeline is set.

(Put another way, since they can only visit the same point in time once, they only get one shot at fixing the timeline. They can’t go back and try again, and once the consequences after the change have happened as well, it is too late)

~ ~ ~

Seasons:

Seasons 1 & 2 were only partly about fixing history, and focused more on hunting down the villain of the season throughout time. You don't need to know about those guys, but:

Season 1: Origins of their tech. Rip Hunter comes from the far future. He was a member of a group called the "Time Masters", an organization that polices history from criminals and time pirates. They all have fancy time-ships like the Waverider. They also have a mystical hub of knowledge that lets them monitor time changes. Rip went rogue and assembled this team of "Legends" to hunt his personal nemesis, because the time masters refused to stop that particular bad guy. Turns out the time masters were the real bad guys, adjusting history for their benefit. When they are finally defeated, the time masters are destroyed, along with most of their ships, and their knowledge hub. Gideon temporarily loses her ability to scan time.

Season 2: Aberrations. A new set of bad guys travel through time messing things up. Gideon learns to detect these changes in history, called "Aberrations". This is how they follow the villains, and fix things before the changes "cement". In order to defeat these bad guys, the legends wind up crossing their own timelines, interacting with their past selves.* This breaks time, sort of like "Father's Day" on Doctor Who (but without pterodactyls). This leads to...

Season 3: Anachronisms. With time fractured, everything is out of place. Dinosaurs in LA, Caesar in Aruba, etc. They call these "Anachronisms". Rip decides to start a new organization, the Time Bureau, to deal with these. This Time Bureau is based in present day, but has the technology to open doorways through time at will. The Legends set out to prove that they can fix what they broke, attempting to repair the anachronisms themselves (without making things worse). Whenever an anachronism appears and history begins to change, the changes "ripple" through time in "waves". These are called "time quakes", and with Gideon they develop a "time seismograph" to trace the epicenter.

. . . Still season 3: Long ago, a big bad demon was banished to another dimension. But through the fractures in time, he is finding his way back in. After many attempts to stop this demon, they decide the only way to defeat him is to let him into this reality and defeat him here. They do (with much silliness!). But the catch: when they opened up the other dimension, more than the one demon came through. Every magical monster that was ever banished by good guys was let back in. Leading to now...

Season 4: Fugitives. They name these magical escapees "Fugitives", because they all escaped from an inter-dimensional prison. Constantine has some special bones that can track magical creatures -> they hook these bones up to the time seismograph, to track the creatures throughout time. (There will probably be a big bad revealed sometime in the season. Maybe whoever is hunting Constantine?)

~ ~ ~

* Footnote: To be accurate, they have interacted with their past selves in history on several occasions. But this time they went back to a moment they already went to (having failed a fight), and worked together with their earlier time traveling selves, changing the outcome of what they did the first time around. That paradox is what broke time.

~ ~ ~

One more note about how changes “cement” in time, and how that can manifest. The time travelers remember the version of history that they grew up with. But sometimes they visit home, or call in to the time bureau, and the person back on earth will mention some cultural reference or historic event that seems totally normal to them, but is completely new to the time traveler. This tells them that the timeline has been changed, and they go looking for the cause. A good example of this is in episode 4x01, when Nate is having dinner with his family, and his father mentions “The Woodstock Massacre”. Nate immediately knew that is not what happened originally, and something obviously needed to be fixed.

Sometimes another thing happens: As I mentioned, when the timeline changes, the time travelers’ memories remain unchanged (for a while, anyway), but physical changes are quicker to manifest. For example, parts of the Waverider disappearing when the history of technology changes, or a crew member’s wedding ring disappearing after he interfered with his past self.

~ ~ ~

Next up: Character Profiles!

SFG

"A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after." - Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger's life was a picture of an idea in flight, and the idea will continue long after. As long as there are people with goodness and courage in their hearts, the idea will continue forever.

Each season a few characters leave, and some new ones join. There are usually a few people with either useful knowledge or a personal stake in dealing with the villain / problem of the season.

With some exceptions, the legends tend to be made up of anti-heroes. Reformed criminals, rogues, misfits, and others who just never quite found their place in the world. For most of them this is the first place they found where they truly fit in, and feel useful. The rogues don't have to completely reform, just now they have a productive outlet for their talents. This is why they are known as "legends" NOT "heroes".

Most of them are from present day, and when they check in at home it is 2018. There are notable exceptions.

~ ~ ~

First of all I will profile Rip, for though he is no longer around, he founded the Waverider team and then the time bureau. His fingerprints are still all over the show.

Rip HunterIs from the far future! (I forget which century? Edit: Ok, "from" does not have a simple answer. See following posts for details. ) The original owner of the Waverider. I already partly covered his history with the Time Masters, and his founding of the Time bureau, but here is some more: He was trained as a lone agent by the Time Masters, and while that organization turned out to be corrupt, Rip truly believed in the cause of guarding and protecting Time. He went rogue in order to do this, first recruiting the Legends for assistance, and then founding the Time Bureau to replace what the Time Masters were supposed to be. Though always well intentioned, Rip had some flaws. He could be dramatic and brooding, and his decision making was occasionally dubious. He was captain of the Waverider in season 1, and while he was an excellent teacher, the role of captain did not always suit him. When Sara became captain in season 2, she proved a much better leader to the team. The Time Bureau he founded has also flourished after his departure.

Also: I assume all the fantastic vintage items in the Waverider were collected by Rip. He had a certain kind of flair, and a particular fondness for the old west. He always wore a trench coat, and carried an old style pistol that was enhanced by future tech.

~ ~ ~

Season 4 characters

Sara Lance / White Canary
Trained by the league of assassins, she can be highly deadly. She was brought back from the dead at least once. A reformed rogue, she earned her place as captain of the Waverider due to her leadership skills and practical decision making. Sister of Laurel Lance, daughter of Dinah Lance. From present day.

--

Mick Rory / Heat Wave
Obsessed with fire, and carries a heat gun. Was once only interested in causing destruction, in retaliation for his own tormented past. After much character development, he has resolved many of his issues and mellowed out considerably. He now provides muscle for the team, and playfully mocks them. He is not particularly smart. (Their first stop was the sixties. When they tuned in a local TV channel on the ship, he complained that the channel "only showed reruns". The others gave up trying to explain. ). But he has other insights that are unique to him. Also from present day.

--

Ray Palmer / The Atom
Billionaire, inventor, tech company founder. Built himself a super-suit that can shrink (or occasionally grow) to any size needed. He also built a hand held device that can temporarily shrink any target. (Humorously named the "shrink ray".)

The ultimate optimist, he relentlessly sees the best potential in every person and situation. His eagerness is the perfect antidote to some of the more jaded characters around him, especially when they deal with potentially disturbing situations. Also from present day.

--

Nate Heywood / Steel
Historian by training. Can turn his body into solid steel at will. His grandfather Henry Heywood was “Commander Steel", a member of the Justice Society of America, during WWII. This season, Nate leaves the Waverider, and goes to work at the Time Bureau instead. Also from present day.

--

Zari Tomaz
Wields the mystical "Air Totem" which lets her control wind powers. A Muslim-American hacker. Is from the year 2042! In her timeline, the US has oppressive laws banning all meta-humans and all religion. Her brother carried the air totem before her, and was killed for resisting the government. She stays with the Waverider, hoping to find some way to fix the future (without making things worse in the process).

--

Constantine
Appeared a few times in season 3, but only joined as a regular now in season 4. His backstory and character development will be explored going forward. (I gather he has some backstory that was shown elsewhere, but I am less familiar with that. I assume that anything relevant to this show will be explored here.) Also from present day.

--

Nora Darhk
Is the daughter of super-villain Damien Darhk, who was finally defeated last season. She was partially possessed by a demon for most of her life, and also learned some very dark magic. As the pawn of her father and the mega-demon that the Legends defeated last season, she was caught in the middle of the fight between them and the Legends. Now that her father and the demon are both gone, she is beginning her journey to discover who she is without them, and who she will choose to be. Also from present day. Is from 2039.

--

Charlie
A new character who is introduced this season. Her story begins in episode 4x03, and develops from there. I will not include her profile here, as any bio would be spoilers. (I can add this if requested.)

~ ~ ~

Time Bureau employees

Ava Sharpe
Girlfriend of Sara Lance, and current director of the Time Bureau. She was trained as an agent by Rip, and took over his job when he left. She did not know her own true personal history until recently.

That history:
In the year 2213, there are thousands of "AVA clones". These clones function as a sort of slave race / robot population of workers. They all look the same, are manufactured as adults, and their skills and knowledge can be customized to different purposes. In that year they function as the entire police force, as well as many consumer functions such as nannies etc.

Rip went to that year and "acquired" an AVA copy, and customized her to be the perfect agent for his new Time Bureau. He gave her fake memories of life in present day, and even paid some actors to pretend to be her parents for if she ever visited her fake "home". Rip was even able to replace her with a new copy if she was killed. (This whole thing is a good example of Rip's well meaning but dubious decision making!)

Sara and Ava learned all this together, and Ava was rightfully horrified. Now she knows that everything she thought she knew about her life was a lie, that she has no family, and she never even had a childhood. Which means she fits right in with her new family: all the other misfits on the show.

--

Gary Green(last name?)
Time Bureau agent. Fairly nerdy and socially awkward. Does not usually handle the most challenging of jobs, but resourceful in his own way. He impressed Constantine one time by contributing an idea from Dungeons & Dragons that was useful in battling the actual demon. (Constantine then joined Gary’s D&D group for a game. Clearly it was good non-lethal practice for the real thing.) Assumed to be from present day, but has not been specified, IIRC.

--

Hank Heywood
Nate father. Works for the DOD. His connection to the Time Bureau is revealed in episode 4x02, and is explored from there. From present day.

--

Mona
New character, role still developing. First glimpsed in episode 4x03 (I think?). Her role is expanded in episode 4x05. Assumed to be from present day, so far unspecified.

~ ~ ~

Former members who may still be mentioned

Amaya Jiwe / Vixen
Was a regular in seasons 2 & 3, and now the actress continues on in season 4 playing a different character. This is why she gets mentioned, while the new character settles in.

Amaya is from the past. She left her village in Africa during WWII to join the Justice Society of America (JSA). History said she moved back to her village after the war, and had a daughter and granddaughters, one of whom is a hero in present day. When she left the JSA in 1942 to join the Waverider, it was clear that she would need to eventually return to her village in order to preserve this future for her granddaughters. (She also had to end her doomed romance with Nate, for the same reason.)

--

Henry Heywood / Commander Steel
As long as I am mentioning the JSA, here is Henry Heywood, Nate’s grandfather, as “Commander Steel”, in 1942.

~ ~ ~

Next up: Technology!

SFG

Edits: Some corrections courtesy of Christopher.

Edited by Sci-Fi Girl, 25 November 2018 - 12:19 PM.

"A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after." - Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger's life was a picture of an idea in flight, and the idea will continue long after. As long as there are people with goodness and courage in their hearts, the idea will continue forever.

The 22nd century; specifically, the instigating event that caused him to go rogue took place in 2166, when the season 1 villain murdered his family.

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Sara Lance / White Canary
Trained by the league of assassins, she can be highly deadly. She was brought back from the dead at least once. A reformed rogue, she earned her place as captain of the Waverider due to her leadership skills and practical decision making. Sister of Laurel Lance, daughter of Dinah Lance. From present day.

She's essentially tied with Oliver Queen as the longest-running Arrowverse character, since Sara first appeared in the pilot of Arrow, although played by a different actress; Caity Lotz didn't debut in the role until season 2 of Arrow. Which still means she's been around longer than any of the Flash or Supergirl characters.

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Zari Tomaz
Wields the mystical "Air Totem" which lets her control wind powers.

Loosely based on the Isis character from the 1970s Filmation Associates TV series spun off from Shazam!, and on the later version of Isis added to DC Comics continuity in the '90s. Unfortunately, they can't use that name for her because of the current association of the name "ISIS" with a terrorist organization, even though they don't actually call themselves ISIS and it's just an acronym coined by the media.

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Constantine
Appeared a few times in season 3, but only joined as a regular now in season 4. His backstory and character development will be explored going forward. (I gather he has some backstory that was shown elsewhere, but I am less familiar with that. I assume that anything relevant to this show will be explored here.)

NBC's Constantine was originally an unrelated series, but when it was cancelled after one season, the producers of Arrow brought Matt Ryan's John Constantine on board for a guest appearance, retroactively folding his show into their universe. It's rather remarkable the way they've salvaged a cancelled character and given him a new lease on life. Which is pretty much what the Legends are all about -- giving a second chance to people who are failures in their own lives. (Although in real life, it seems to me that the show was created as a vehicle for the most successful and popular guest characters from Arrow and The Flash.)

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Nora Darhk
Is the daughter of super-villain Damien Darhk, who was finally defeated last season. She was partially possessed by a demon for most of her life, and also learned some very dark magic. As the pawn of her father and the mega-demon that the Legends defeated last season, she was caught in the middle of the fight between them and the Legends. Now that her father and the demon are both gone, she is beginning her journey to discover who she is without them, and who she will choose to be. Also from present day.

Actually the Nora that we know from Legends is from 2039. We first encountered Eleanor "Nora" Darhk as a 13-year-old in season 4 of Arrow. She was possessed by Mallus the following year, and 22 years later she traveled back in time to do Mallus's bidding.

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Gary (last name?)

Gary Green.

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Mona
New character, role still developing. First glimpsed in episode 4x03 (I think?). Her role is expanded in episode 4x05. From present day.

Well, she appears to be from the present day. Since she's apparently a regular character, there may be more to her than meets the eye.

"You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right." -- xkcd

"The first man to raise a fist is the man who's run out of ideas." -- "H. G. Wells," Time After Time

The 22nd century; specifically, the instigating event that caused him to go rogue took place in 2166, when the season 1 villain murdered his family.

More about Rip and the Time Masters, so will probably never be consequential to the show again if anyone wants to skip it

I am probably filling in some gaps that aren't there, but I thought Rip Hunter's early childhood, up to age 7ish, was in the past....
I clearly recalled that he was a impoverish orphan street kid (was somewhere, somewhen ever specified?).

The Time Masters apparently plucked orphan street kids kids out of different times and places in put them in an orphanage of their own making.
Then shaped and cultivated them into future Time Masters.... I guess they felt they were doing humanitarian work and no one would miss the kids.
And then forbid them from having normal lives, such as having/making their own families.
They were worried about Time Masters going rogue to change time to save their families, as Rip did.
(ETA maybe this is part of the reason why Rip didn't have many qualms about taking and programing Ava clones ).

Rip's wife gave up being a Time Master, and presumably they made a mutual decision to have their marital home in the 22nd century, 2100s.
We don't know if that was because it was familiar and that was part of Rip's origins, or her origins.
Or if that was when the Time Masters "home based" was.
Or if it was picked for another reason.
(But heck, they should have known that was a terrible place/time to be alive!).

Edited by sierraleone, 25 November 2018 - 12:03 PM.

Rules for surviving an Autocracy:

Rule#1: Believe the Autocrat.
Rule#2: Do not be taken in by small signs of normality.
Rule#3: Institutions will not save you.
Rule#4: Be outraged.
Rule#5: Don't make compromises.
Rule#6: Remember the future.
- Masha Gessen
Source: http://www2.nybooks....r-survival.html

Thanks for the corrections and additions Christopher! I will note some of the corrections in my post.

Christopher, on 25 November 2018 - 06:40 AM, said:

Sci-Fi Girl, on 25 November 2018 - 01:38 AM, said:

Rip HunterIs from the far future! (I forget which century?)

The 22nd century; specifically, the instigating event that caused him to go rogue took place in 2166, when the season 1 villain murdered his family.

That certainly works as an answer, though I am remembering some things and realizing that there is no one single answer to this, it is more complicated.

Because I believe the Time Masters' headquarters existed on a separate plane outside of time, and their members were recruited from all over time. And Rip was a street orphan from somewhere, who the Time Masters adopted to train as an agent with no personal attachments.

So the century of his childhood, the one of his workplace, and the one where he eventually settled his (forbidden) family in, are three different time periods.

Edit: Sierraleone beat me to it!

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Constantine
Appeared a few times in season 3, but only joined as a regular now in season 4. His backstory and character development will be explored going forward. (I gather he has some backstory that was shown elsewhere, but I am less familiar with that. I assume that anything relevant to this show will be explored here.)

NBC's Constantine was originally an unrelated series, but when it was cancelled after one season, the producers of Arrow brought Matt Ryan's John Constantine on board for a guest appearance, retroactively folding his show into their universe. It's rather remarkable the way they've salvaged a cancelled character and given him a new lease on life. Which is pretty much what the Legends are all about -- giving a second chance to people who are failures in their own lives. (Although in real life, it seems to me that the show was created as a vehicle for the most successful and popular guest characters from Arrow and The Flash.)

Quote

Quote

Nora Darhk
Is the daughter of super-villain Damien Darhk, who was finally defeated last season. She was partially possessed by a demon for most of her life, and also learned some very dark magic. As the pawn of her father and the mega-demon that the Legends defeated last season, she was caught in the middle of the fight between them and the Legends. Now that her father and the demon are both gone, she is beginning her journey to discover who she is without them, and who she will choose to be. Also from present day.

Actually the Nora that we know from Legends is from 2039. We first encountered Eleanor "Nora" Darhk as a 13-year-old in season 4 of Arrow. She was possessed by Mallus the following year, and 22 years later she traveled back in time to do Mallus's bidding.

Ah, I had missed that. Probably because I have only sporadically watched Arrow.

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Mona
New character, role still developing. First glimpsed in episode 4x03 (I think?). Her role is expanded in episode 4x05. From present day.

Well, she appears to be from the present day. Since she's apparently a regular character, there may be more to her than meets the eye.

Ooh, right! She should have been another "assumed to be but not specified"!

SFG

Edited by Sci-Fi Girl, 25 November 2018 - 12:06 PM.

"A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after." - Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger's life was a picture of an idea in flight, and the idea will continue long after. As long as there are people with goodness and courage in their hearts, the idea will continue forever.

The 22nd century; specifically, the instigating event that caused him to go rogue took place in 2166, when the season 1 villain murdered his family.

More about Rip and the Time Masters, so will probably never be consequential to the show again if anyone wants to skip it

I am probably filling in some gaps that aren't there, but I thought Rip Hunter's early childhood, up to age 7ish, was in the past....
I clearly recalled that he was a impoverish orphan street kid (was somewhere, somewhen ever specified?).

The Time Masters apparently plucked orphan street kids kids out of different times and places in put them in an orphanage of their own making.
Then shaped and cultivated them into future Time Masters.... I guess they felt they were doing humanitarian work and no one would miss the kids.
And then forbid them from having normal lives, such as having/making their own families.
They were worried about Time Masters going rogue to change time to save their families, as Rip did.
(ETA maybe this is part of the reason why Rip didn't have many qualms about taking and programing Ava clones ).

Rip's wife gave up being a Time Master, and presumably they made a mutual decision to have their marital home in the 22nd century, 2100s.
We don't know if that was because it was familiar and that was part of Rip's origins, or her origins.
Or if that was when the Time Masters "home based" was.
Or if it was picked for another reason.
(But heck, they should have known that was a terrible place/time to be alive!).

I feel like I could take anything we say about season 1 and the Time Masters, and say "Yes, but it's more complicated than that..." LOL, season one was so convoluted!

But ultimately, more detail than that is not really relevant to season 4.

SFG

"A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after." - Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger's life was a picture of an idea in flight, and the idea will continue long after. As long as there are people with goodness and courage in their hearts, the idea will continue forever.

Cement: Early on it was described that changes to the timeline take a little while to "cement". That is, at first the timeline is in flux, and can still be changed back before the whole future changes accordingly.

Interesting. This is closer to the way I'd imagine time travel would "really" work than the way it is usually presented. It always seemed weird to me that time travelers would jump ahead and find the future already changed. Wouldn't the changes just plod along, overwriting the previous timeline one day at a time?

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With time fractured, everything is out of place. Dinosaurs in LA, Caesar in Aruba, etc.

I'm sorry I missed that.

Sci-Fi Girl, on 25 November 2018 - 01:38 AM, said:

Ray Palmer / The Atom

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Nate Heywood / Steel

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Zari Tomaz

Do these characters ever use their super powers? I've only seen two episodes, but there's been no indication that anybody has super powers (other than some magic).

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Hank Heywood
Nate father. Works for the DOD. His connection to the Time Bureau is revealed in episode 4x02, and is explored from there.

Does this explain why the DOD has oversight and budget control of the Time Bureau?

Interesting. This is closer to the way I'd imagine time travel would "really" work than the way it is usually presented. It always seemed weird to me that time travelers would jump ahead and find the future already changed. Wouldn't the changes just plod along, overwriting the previous timeline one day at a time?

The idea that the timeline would visibly change is a contradiction in terms. Change requires a version before the change and a version after the change -- it requires the passage of time in and of itself. And by definition, a single moment in time cannot come after itself. The perception of a time traveler that the altered version comes after the "original" version is an illusion created by the fact that they went back and relived the same moment twice, like rewinding a video. The time traveler's perception doesn't dictate reality for the whole universe. Objectively, if there are two versions of the same moment, they exist simultaneously in parallel timelines. And that means that it's impossible for one timeline to "erase" or "overwrite" another. That's a conceit that most time travel stories use, but it's absolute nonsense and a self-contradiction. If someone living now in 2018 goes back to, say, 1951 and changes history, then that change doesn't happen "now," it already happened 67 years ago, even if the time traveler or the audience didn't know about it until now. So either it would've been part of the timeline we know all along, or it would've split off a second timeline that had existed alongside ours for the past 67 years. Those are the only possibilities that make logical or physical sense.

In my Star Trek: Department of Temporal Investigations novels, I came up with a quantum-physics handwave for the Trek conceit of time travel "overwriting" the timeline at the moment the traveler goes back into the past, like McCoy jumping into the Guardian of Forever. I rationalized that the original and altered timelines did coexist in between the moment the split occurred in the past and the moment the time travel occurred in the present, but once that moment was reached, the quantum entanglement created by the time travel caused the two timelines to converge into one, with the information from the altered timeline overwriting the original from that moment forward, so that it was as if all of history had changed at that moment. But it's basically fantasy. While it's theoretically remotely possible for two diverged quantum timelines to recombine, it would violate the law of entropy and be prohibitively improbable. I had to invent a fictional force that would overcome entropy and make it happen.

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Sci-Fi Girl, on 25 November 2018 - 01:38 AM, said:

Ray Palmer / The Atom

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Nate Heywood / Steel

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Zari Tomaz

Do these characters ever use their super powers? I've only seen two episodes, but there's been no indication that anybody has super powers (other than some magic).

They don't use their powers on a regular basis, but they do sometimes. And Sara used Ray's shrink ray in "Tagumo Attacks!!!"

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Does this explain why the DOD has oversight and budget control of the Time Bureau?

That actually came as a surprise to me. Until this season, I'd had the impression that it was something Rip had set up with the help of people from the future and that it was operating in secret from the government as well as the public. But I guess having the backing of the government in the present day is more practical. Though I wonder why Rip, an Englishman, would've gone with the US government instead of the UK or something international.

"You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right." -- xkcd

"The first man to raise a fist is the man who's run out of ideas." -- "H. G. Wells," Time After Time

This show is fun to talk about! And once I had the inspiration and started writing this, I couldn't stop!

Now, I know I said earlier that I started writing this when I couldn't sleep. To tell the truth, it was when I was extremely shaken at the end of the most traumatic week in the news. I was desperate to stop thinking about that for a while, and babbling about this silly show was just the distraction I needed.

SFG

Edited by Sci-Fi Girl, 26 November 2018 - 10:53 AM.

"A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after." - Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger's life was a picture of an idea in flight, and the idea will continue long after. As long as there are people with goodness and courage in their hearts, the idea will continue forever.

Sara's mother isn't really a presence in the show (or her life, really). More relevant is her father; Quentin Lance (from Arrow), a police captain from Starling City. Sara adores her dad and frequently makes reference to/use of things she learned from him.

The Waverider's parlour is also full of in-jokes to both the Arrowverse (Katana's mask) and the wider never-filmed DC multiverse (the bucket-helmet of Ma Hunkle, the first Red Tornado). Rip himself has made reference to "Men of Steel" and "Dark Knights" (Arrow has also made numerous Batman references, so the Bat exists in the Arrowverse, even if we've never seen him).

Some relevant specifics on Constantine's background; when he was young, he used to run with a band of "dabblers in the dark arts" --think Rupert "Ripper" Giles from Buffy. Constantine blames himself for a spell-gone-wrong that doomed an innocent little girl to Hell, and dedicated his life to self-punishment and atonement (in that order). The magical world he traffics in tends to be quite a bit darker than what we see on Legends; people who get close to him don't end well. In his own show, he had a "handler" --an angel called Manny (Emmanuel) who took the form of an African-American man. at the end of that series (setting up for a season 2 before it was cancelled), it was revealed that Manny was actually a fallen angel, manipulating Constantine for his own purposes (and thus responsible for many of those "accidental" tragedies). Some fans have speculated that the mysterious force haunting Constantine this season (his secret reason for joining the Legends) is Manny.

Sara's mother isn't really a presence in the show (or her life, really).

But she coincidentally has a time-travel connection, since she was played by Alex Kingston (River Song from Doctor Who). She's only appeared intermittently on Arrow in its first four seasons.

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More relevant is her father; Quentin Lance (from Arrow), a police captain from Starling City.

Which has been named Star City for several years now, and Quentin stopped being a police captain in season 4.

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The Waverider's parlour is also full of in-jokes to both the Arrowverse (Katana's mask) and the wider never-filmed DC multiverse (the bucket-helmet of Ma Hunkle, the first Red Tornado). Rip himself has made reference to "Men of Steel" and "Dark Knights" (Arrow has also made numerous Batman references, so the Bat exists in the Arrowverse, even if we've never seen him).

Well, existed. It's been revealed that in the upcoming Batwoman series -- which appears to be set on Earth-1 along with every other series but Supergirl -- Batman has been gone for three years. Although Supergirl has twice hinted that Earth-38 has its own Batman who's sometimes worked with Superman.

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Some relevant specifics on Constantine's background; when he was young, he used to run with a band of "dabblers in the dark arts" --think Rupert "Ripper" Giles from Buffy. Constantine blames himself for a spell-gone-wrong that doomed an innocent little girl to Hell, and dedicated his life to self-punishment and atonement (in that order). The magical world he traffics in tends to be quite a bit darker than what we see on Legends; people who get close to him don't end well. In his own show, he had a "handler" --an angel called Manny (Emmanuel) who took the form of an African-American man. at the end of that series (setting up for a season 2 before it was cancelled), it was revealed that Manny was actually a fallen angel, manipulating Constantine for his own purposes (and thus responsible for many of those "accidental" tragedies). Some fans have speculated that the mysterious force haunting Constantine this season (his secret reason for joining the Legends) is Manny.

We've seen flashes of an image of a black man's face associated with whatever's hunting Constantine, but the actor is Christian Keyes rather than Harold Perrineau, who played Manny. However, the Arrowverse has recast characters before, so it's still possible.

"You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right." -- xkcd

"The first man to raise a fist is the man who's run out of ideas." -- "H. G. Wells," Time After Time

Sara's mother isn't really a presence in the show (or her life, really).

But she coincidentally has a time-travel connection, since she was played by Alex Kingston (River Song from Doctor Who). She's only appeared intermittently on Arrow in its first four seasons.

Which I found hilarious in season one, watching Sara be friends with Rip, who was played by Arthur Darvill (Rory Pond Williams from Doctor Who!) Almost like Rip was secretly her grandfather. (From the future? Why not?!? )

But clearly, someone in the casting dept for these shows must be a fan of Doctor Who. They had John Barrowman play a villain (Malcolm Merlyn), first on Arrow, and then season 2 of Legends. Arrow also had Colin Salmon for a while. Did I miss anyone?

RJDiogenes, on 26 November 2018 - 06:47 PM, said:

Sci-Fi Girl, on 26 November 2018 - 09:18 AM, said:

To tell the truth, it was when I was extremely shaken at the end of the most traumatic week in the news.

The sad part here is that I'm not even sure which traumatic week you mean. There's been so many.

SFG

Edited by Sci-Fi Girl, 09 December 2018 - 12:17 PM.

"A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after." - Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger's life was a picture of an idea in flight, and the idea will continue long after. As long as there are people with goodness and courage in their hearts, the idea will continue forever.

- The Waverider: A time ship from the future, filled with various future tech. The engine is a "time drive" that can navigate the time-stream, and also park in a dimension outside of time. (I forget what they call that? They haven't mentioned it in a while.) Edit: They park in the Temporal Zone! (Thanks Christopher! )

- The Jump Ship: A small shuttle type ship connected to the Waverider, with its own time drive. Useful when one or more crew members need to take a trip to a different place or time, while the Waverider stays with the primary mission.

Technology on the Waverider includes:

- Gideon: An advanced AI that runs the ship. She is probably sentient, has her own personality, and also a sense of humor. On more than one occasion, she has appeared in the form of a human. (One of those times was a "did you wish really hard" type situation with Rip. )

- Time Seismograph: I mentioned this earlier. It detects changes in time by the waves that ripple through the timeline. Recently upgraded to detect magical creatures, and re-named the "magic-o-meter".

- A very advanced medical bay. Gideon can deal with almost any injury the crew encounters, using advanced scans and treatments. On one occasion, she even re-grew a crew member's lost hand! (Having had full medical scans on record for just such an occasion.)

- The Fabricator: This can make items of clothing to suit any time period, and also suitable weapons and tech for whatever time period they visit. The Fabricator also makes food and drink.

- This has not been mentioned since season 1, but they each get an implant that is something like a universal translator, or a babel fish. With it, they can speak and understand any language.

- The Shrink Ray: This one is an invention of Ray's. Can temporarily shrink anything down to a smaller size. (On one occasion, they used it to shrink a saber tooth tiger down to the size of a house cat, making it easier to transport back to its original time. It was adorable! ) The effect wears off after a certain period of time.

Personal technology:

- Ray's 'Atom' suit: His own design, it is a full super-suit, with armor and energy weapons, and able to fly. The suit's ability to shrink is powered by dwarf star alloy.

- Mick's heat gun: Basically a fancy flamethrower, never seems to run out of fuel.

- Zari's air totem: An ancient mystical stone, that gives the bearer power to control the wind. Originally worn as a necklace, the stone's setting was melted in ep 4x02. Ray then set it in a new housing for Zari: something between a smart-watch and a fit bit!

Time bureau technology, also used on the Waverider:

- Time courier: This is a wrist band that can open portals directly to anywhere, with no need for a timeship.

- A memory device: Used to selectively erase people's memories in order to preserve the timeline. Pretty much works like the Men in Black "flashy thing".

SFG

Edits: Some updates thanks to Christopher.

Edited by Sci-Fi Girl, 09 December 2018 - 12:35 PM.

"A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after." - Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger's life was a picture of an idea in flight, and the idea will continue long after. As long as there are people with goodness and courage in their hearts, the idea will continue forever.

- The Jump Ship: A small shuttle type ship connected to the Waverider, with its own time drive. Useful when one or more crew members need to take a trip to a different place or time, while the Waverider stays with the primary mission.

Or sometimes just when the writers need a place for a couple of characters to have a private conversation, not unlike the turbolift in Star Trek.

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Technology on the Waverider includes:

- Gideon: An advanced AI that runs the ship. She is probably sentient, has her own personality, and also a sense of humor.

Played by Amy Pemberton, who's billed as a series regular even though she generally has only a few voiceover lines per episode. (Much like Tamsen McDonough, who voices the ship's computer Lucy on Killjoys and once appeared as an android -- "Well, gynoid, but no one says that" -- which Lucy's personality was temporarily downloaded into.)

The first Gideon, voiced by Morena Baccarin, appeared on The Flash as a future computer used by Eobard Thawne (the Reverse-Flash, and a major villain of Legends season 2), and was said to be an invention of the future Barry Allen (the Flash). It's never been explained what the connection is between the two Gideons. I figure they're like a future version of Siri, a customizable AI assistant product rather than a unique entity.

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- Ray's suit: His own design, it is a full super-suit, with armor and energy weapons, and able to fly. The suit's ability to shrink is powered by dwarf star alloy.

Called the Atom suit, since Ray Palmer's superhero identity is the Atom. Ray was introduced on Arrow as a sort of Tony Stark/Iron Man surrogate -- or more properly, a Ted Kord/Blue Beetle surrogate, since the Arrow producers had wanted to use Ted but the Warner Bros. movie division had tentative plans for him or something, so they went with Ray Palmer instead and basically wrote him as if he were Ted Kord, a billionaire inventor who became a high-tech superhero, but with more of an Iron Man vibe, hence the heavy armor suit. Since Arrow is a comparatively grounded show, Ray didn't develop the ability to shrink (the Atom's main power in the comics) until the season where he was spun off into Legends. (He was believed killed in an explosion at the end of the previous season, but it turned out he'd just been stuck at really tiny size for a while.)

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- Zari's air totem: An ancient mystical stone, that gives the bearer power to control the wind. Originally worn as a necklace, the stone's setting was melted in ep 4x02. Ray then set it in a new housing for Zari: something between a smart-watch and a fit bit!

Based on the amulet of Isis from the '70s Filmation show. Isis on the show had basically godlike power and could do virtually anything that didn't require particularly expensive special effects -- control the elements, talk to animals, transmute matter, freeze and reverse time, you name it. The comics' Isis introduced decades later had control over all elements along with the same basic power set as Captain Marvel aka Shazam (since the Filmation character was a spinoff of Filmation's Shazam! TV show). But her most famous and iconic power on the show was flight, which she invoked by uttering the incantation, "O Zephyr winds that blow on high, lift me now so I can fly," at which point a whirlwind would lift her into the air. The producers of Legends thus chose to make elemental control of air her only power, and to identify her amulet with the Zambesi Air Totem that had been introduced along with the other elemental totems in season 2 of the animated Vixen webseries.

"You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right." -- xkcd

"The first man to raise a fist is the man who's run out of ideas." -- "H. G. Wells," Time After Time

The Waverider is also a comics reference; "Waverider" is the superhero identity of Matthew Ryder, who comes from a generic "Bad Future" (2030) and time-travelled into the present-day (1991, when he first appeared) to try to prevent it. The process merged him with his time-machine, creating a gold-skinned, fire-haired figure who can travel through and manipulate time.

Given that the show included Firestorm (a similar merger between two humans), I was kind of expecting that the Waverider would end up destroyed, with Rip and Gideon merged in the technobabble explosion.

^It's not the first time the Arrowverse has turned the name of a comics character into the name of a vehicle: Arrow season 2's flashbacks were set largely on a ship called the Amazo, after the power-copying android from the Justice League comics. It was an odd reference, but this was while the show was just starting to ease into the introduction of superpowers and comic-book fantasy after its first, grounded season. The ship's master was Professor Ivo, who in the comics was the robot maker who created the Amazo android, but in the Arrowverse was experimenting with a supersoldier serum that gave enhanced strength, the first superpower depicted in the show's universe.

"You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right." -- xkcd

"The first man to raise a fist is the man who's run out of ideas." -- "H. G. Wells," Time After Time

- Gideon: An advanced AI that runs the ship. She is probably sentient, has her own personality, and also a sense of humor.

Played by Amy Pemberton, who's billed as a series regular even though she generally has only a few voiceover lines per episode. (Much like Tamsen McDonough, who voices the ship's computer Lucy on Killjoys and once appeared as an android -- "Well, gynoid, but no one says that" -- which Lucy's personality was temporarily downloaded into.)

Yep, definitely comparable to that!

Cybersnark, on 09 December 2018 - 08:10 AM, said:

The Waverider is also a comics reference; "Waverider" is the superhero identity of Matthew Ryder, who comes from a generic "Bad Future" (2030) and time-travelled into the present-day (1991, when he first appeared) to try to prevent it. The process merged him with his time-machine, creating a gold-skinned, fire-haired figure who can travel through and manipulate time.

Wow, interesting! (Or should I say "Astonishing"! )

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Given that the show included Firestorm (a similar merger between two humans), I was kind of expecting that the Waverider would end up destroyed, with Rip and Gideon merged in the technobabble explosion.

That is a funny thought, but then our crew of misfits wouldn't have a home to travel through time in!

SFG

"A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after." - Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger's life was a picture of an idea in flight, and the idea will continue long after. As long as there are people with goodness and courage in their hearts, the idea will continue forever.